This Ain't Chicago
by Raven D. Grimm
Summary: Elliot Grimm hadn't expected to be mugged on the street in Chicago, only to wake up in Gotham General Hospital with a permanent smile, but that's just what happened. He finds that Gotham isn't much different from Chicago, except, for the Supervillains. This is just me, having some fun with putting a character into Batman. Possible slash later on. T for Language/Violence. R
1. Chapter 1

I don't own anything but My own characters, k? Batman and Gotham and the rest belong to the DCU.

Chapter 1:

Waking up in a hospital with no memory of how you got there, would worry almost anyone.

Elliot Grimm was one of those people, he could remember everything, except how he'd ended up in the hospital, hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor.

He had memories of everything, his whole life, except for how he had ended up in that hospital. He remembered walking down the street in Chicago, he was pretty sure. Just minding his own business, when a small group of men came up to him, about three or four. At least two were holding knives.

They'd demanded his money, called him some unsavory names because of his looks, one had said something about his nervous laughing being kind of creepy, he'd felt a blow to the head, and had blacked out before he hit the ground.

That was all he could remember, so when the nurse came in to find him awake, she looked relieved, but seemed to be trying not to look at his face, this made him uncomfortable, what was wrong with his face?

"I'm.. Sorry.. Where am I?" he asked softly, it hurt somewhat to speak. The nurse smiled sympathetically at him "You're in Gotham General Hospital. There's nothing to be afraid of." she said, in a tone that sounded extremely rehearsed to Elliot.

Wait... Gotham? But that was a fictional city, wasn't it? Being a bit of a Batman nerd, Elliot couldn't help feeling very confused, and he rather hoped this was some sort of prank, as much as he loved reading the batman comics and watching the cartoon, he didn't want to be there, with all the crime and super villains.

"Why am I here..? I remember getting mugged.. But I think I was knocked out.." he said, reaching up to rub his cheek, the skin felt rather odd, like there was a scar going up from the corner of his mouth. He frowned as he felt the other side of his face, same feeling there as well.

The nurse seemed to grimace at this, so he put his hands back down "Well, you were brought here by Batman. I guess those muggers decided to um, cut your mouth up into a smile.." she said, grabbing a clipboard and writing something down "You were unconscious for about a week and a half, the cuts have just barely finished healing." she said all of this in such a matter-of-fact tone that Elliot nearly ignored her.

"Oh, so I have a Glasgow grin." he mumbled, leaning back in the bed "So can I just leave whenever, after signing some papers or something?" he asked softly, looking back up at the brunette woman.

So a headache and a good deal of signing shit later, Elliot got his clothes back and was out of the hospital. His first plan was to see if Gotham was pretty much just Chicago, by looking for his apartment. He found it in record time, though the neighborhood did look a little different, much darker than he remembered, more graffiti too.

He was quickly greeted by his landlady, a sweet, little old woman that he knew as Mrs. Marianelli. The poor woman looked worried sick.

"Oh, there you are! I was so very worried! Oh my god, what happened to you?" were only some of the things she said, before ushering Elliot into her kitchen for a cup of tea. He told her what had happened, sugar-coating it as much as necessary to keep her from panicking too much, after she was satisfied that he was _not_ going to vanish again, she let him go back up to his apartment.

Once in the privacy of his own rooms, he sighed and went straight to the bathroom to see the damage, looking in the mirror, he almost laughed. That nurse was a ninny, he didn't look that bad! Sure, the scars were quite noticable, but they didn't look so bad on his face.

He decided to take a shower, and once he was done with that, he was going to call into work and explain his absence.

Doing so was much easier in Gotham, apparently everyone understood people constantly getting mugged and ending up in the hospital, his boss was just "Glad it wasn't one of them supercriminals." as he put it.

So he was back to work the next day, some of the customers were a bit put off by the scars, some even asked if he did them himself, to which he laughed and said no, he did not give himself a Glasgow grin, he was mugged and he guessed the muggers thought it'd be funny to give him a permanent smile.

Maybe Gotham wasn't too bad a place to live after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Don't own Batman or any of his Villains, Gotham City, etc etc.

Chapter 2

_Thinking Gotham city wasn't that bad, was obviously a mistake. _This was what Elliot thought to himself, as they were being held up by none other than Harley Quinn. Why? Because she wanted a fucking tattoo to show more of her devotion to The Joker.

The black-haired young man was really annoyed with this, as he just did his best to avoid getting too much attention. This is hard to do when you're one of the only hostages in the room, of which was occupied with himself, the girl who set up all the appointments, and oh, say five thugs?

Elliot's main hope though, was that the crazy harlequin wouldn't shoot the tattoo artist when they were done.

_Dammit, these guys are taking forever. Face hurts, doctor wasn't kidding when he said the cuts were barely healed, where did I put those pain killers again?_

Thankfully, before he was in too much pain, Harley Quinn walked out of the back room, looking quite pleased with her new ink. The thugs seemed to be less edgy now, but much more ready to leave. That's when they started to clear out the cash register, which reeeaaalllyy pissed Elliot off.

"Okay, we just gave you a free tattoo, the LEAST you could do is leave the cash register alone, hello? We live off that money! Am I talkin' to a buncha brick walls here?" He'd snapped and stood up, yelling at them in a very irritated tone.

Of course, all of the thugs were too busy staring at his scars, so was The Joker's right hand lady, this of course only annoyed the young male further. "Yeah, I know. It's the scars right? Well, they're barely healed and I'd like to be able to afford my pain killers, because these things fucking hurt, Kay?" and with that, he yanked the sack that didn't even have that much money in it, straight out of the thug who was clearing the register's hands.

This was about the time when they all snapped out of their little daze, on of the thugs pointing his gun at Elliot, who was a little too irritated and stressed out to care at that moment.

And then Batman magically appeared and apprehended the thugs, sadly Harley got away. Elliot just went about putting the cash back into the cash register, then helping up the girl who worked at it, what was her name again? Lucy? Yeah. That was it. After assuring that she was alright, He turned around to see Batman standing there, this made him jump a bit and promptly let out a small laugh.

"Sheesh, you know how to sneak up on people, huh?"

"What was Harley Quinn doing here?" was the response, how boring, straight to the point, oh well.

"She wanted a free tatto- Oh shit, Sarah!" and with that, Elliot rushed into the back room to see if the tattoo artist was okay, thankfully she was, a little shaken up like Lucy, but not hurt from what he could tell, that was a relief.

Once they went back to the front room, Batman was gone. The three decided they were going to close up early that day, after making sure to reschedule some appointments, and talking to the police for a short amount of time, they all said goodbye to each other and went home.

Elliot was really looking forward to having a cup of tea, taking his painkillers, and watching some tv with Mrs. Martinelli at that point.

Of course, Gotham isn't always that nice, for on the way home he had to deal with several would-be muggers that were easily scared off when you laughed from being startled. And a couple cops, who seemed to think he worked for the Joker because of the scars, to whom he had to explain, no he did not work for the Joker, the scars were given to him by a mugger, and if they didn't believe him they could talk to Gotham General or Batman for all he cared.

All of this left the young man in a very foul mood, so once he got back to the apartment building, he was quite happy to see that at least Mrs. Martinelli had a good day, and she had tea and cookies waiting for him, so maybe the day wasn't so bad after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

(Don't own Batman blah blah blah)

Elliot's first order of buisiness the next day, was to get several bottles of pepper spray, and a couple tazers, which seemed relatively easy to get in Gotham. And his coworkers weren't going to protest about him putting these things behind the counter, if it meant being able to stay safe.

Of course, dealing with the press that wanted to know about the break in, or about Batman's intervention, was exceedingly annoying, but Lucy and Sarah handled it, while Elliot retreated to the back of the shop to avoid anyone but customers.

This worked, until he went out for lunch, there hadn't been many customers that day, but hell, he didn't blame people for not coming around, it was a weekday, and the press certainly hadn't helped business with their reporters crowding the door with questions that morning.

These were the thoughts that led the young man to sigh, whilst he picked at his lunch. When he looked around the small cafe, he noticed a young boy staring at him, this earned the kid a glare, which looked a little creepier when paired with the scars. The little boy promptly squeaked and rushed back to his mother's side.

So the scars helped a little when getting rid of overly inquisitive children, didn't make it less annoying to have them.

That week went by without too much incident, which was a relief, though one sees a lot of weird things when walking around Gotham city, like robberies done by men in weird outfits, really the best thing to do when seeing such things is pretend you didn't see anything, but pay attention and tell the nearest police officer what you saw.

This typically works, unless it's the Joker doing the robbery, then your best bet is to hide your ass behind something, and hope no one sees you.

Then there were the time where he ran into Bruce Wayne on the street, that was _weird_. Especially since he showed concern about Elliot and his co-workers, asking if everyone was alright, to which Elliot replied, that Yes, they were all fine, no one was injured.

And then he promptly bid the Billionaire good bye and ran back to work.

Another thing anyone in Gotham City will tell you, is that if you see a riddle painted on a wall, don't try to solve it, ignore it, and get away from the wall as fast as you can, because the Riddler isn't one of the most enjoyable people to have lunch with.

Elliot noticed a lot of these riddles, and ignored them as thoroughly as he possibly could, though some of them he thought kind of easy. He didn't act as though he really read them, or thought of an answer, though of course with The Riddler, he could tell if you had an answer or not, and Elliot found his neighborhood practically covered in riddles.

This was kind of annoying, so he responded by doing his landlady a favor and repainting the side of the apartment building, which had suffered most of the riddles.

Perhaps he annoyed the supervillain by doing so, but the riddles stopped being painted on Mrs. Marianelli's building, so he supposed he got the point across.

Well, not too terrible for a third chapter, please review!


End file.
